It's October!?!

It's been too long since I've updated. I can't even recap all that's happened in the last month in one short post. I'll just give a few of the main points.

I'm a little over half-way with Enzo. I promise to get a picture up here soon! We're all very excited to meet him and I'm starting to think more seriously about clothes and sleeping arrangements and things like that. I'm also looking forward to swaddling and snuggling a baby while it's cold outside.

We finally took some "first year" pictures of Ruby. We'll take some more closer to Christmas and so we have some family photos. Our friend Chris took them (he took some when she was 5 months old and we used some of them for Christmas cards) and he's going to take some of me when I'm ultra pregnant (in only a few months!) as well as when Enzo is just a few weeks old. We didn't do either of those things with Ruby but I don't think that means we can't with Enzo.

Here's Ruby in the dress that both my mom and I wore in our first year pictures

I've done a LOT of researching, experimenting and near obsessing over the food I'm feeding my family and feel that I've hit a pretty good medium. We're eating primarily organic produce (largely thanks for the food coop which we're still a part of), I'm making whole grain baked goods at home (that I'm soaking but don't think I'm going to get too much deeper into it), we're drinking raw milk as well as making most of our dairy good at home with it (except hard cheeses like cheddar) and we're limiting our sugar big time. I'm trying not to feed Ruby any sugar and only eat it myself in sweets that I know will be really good and it's going pretty well. Most things are easy to substitute honey or dates or even just cinnamon but there are some (like chocolate cake, ice cream, etc) that need it and in those cases we get the most natural kinds or at least no corn syrup brands we can find or make them at home - which is still where we've produced the best chocolate cake so we're doing pretty well.

Speaking of Ruby and sweets: She's so sweet. Although we really have no comparisons to go by, we're pretty sure Ruby is advanced. I think she's even snuck into her "terrible twos" early. She's so smart, talking a lot and pushing whatever boundries she can. She's a ton of fun, though, and we're having a good time.

We waffled for quite some time about whether or not we'd get rid of The Dude or build him a dog house or get him some chickens to herd (getting chickens is still on the back burner) but we finally decided we'd give him a try as an inside dog. He really is a good dog and we'd like him to be a part of the family. So far (after about a week) he's doing really well and Ruby enjoys having him around. I just have to vacuum a lot more.

I'll leave you with another photo of Ruby and promise to get back here sooner rather than later and fill you in further on the daily happenings. Have a wonderful week!

Ruby is wearing a traditional first year celebration dress from Korea that some sweet Korean friends of ours gave her